![]() 2012 Australian Paralympic team portrait of Smith | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Gregory Stephen Smith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nationality | Australian | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Ballarat, Victoria | 19 August 1967|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Disability class | T51, T52, 2.0 (Wheelchair rugby) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Gregory Stephen Smith, OAM [1] (born 19 August 1967) is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair rugby player who won three gold medals in athletics at the 2000 Summer Paralympics, and a gold medal in wheelchair rugby at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, where he was the flag bearer at the opening ceremony. Since 2018, he has been the Assistant Coach of the Australian Steelers.
Smith was born on 19 August 1967 in the Victorian city of Ballarat. [2] He broke his neck in a car accident in 1987 while he was a physical training instructor with the Australian Army. The accident left him with little movement from the chest down. He went through one and a half years of gruelling rehabilitation but his life became active again in 1988 after another patient lent him a racing wheelchair. [3]
Smith won a gold medal in the men's 4x100 m T1 at the World Championships and Games for the Disabled in Assen, Netherlands. [4] He then began his long Paralympic career with a silver medal in the men's 4x100 m relay TW1–2, and bronze medals in the men's marathon TW2 and the men's 4x400 m relay TW1–2 at the 1992 Barcelona Games. He also competed in the men's 800 m, 1500 m and 5000 m TW2 events. [5] In 1992, he held a scholarship with the Victorian Institute of Sport in athletics. [6] That year, he finished fourth in the 10 km road race at the 1992 Oz Day race. [6] In 1995, he was awarded an Australian Institute of Sport Athletes with a Disability non-residential scholarship which he held until 2000. [7]
At the 1996 Atlanta Games, Smith won a silver medal in the men's 5000 m T51. He also competed in the men's 400 m, 1500 m and marathon in T51 events. [5] Smith won three gold medals at the 2000 Sydney Games in the men's 800 m T52, men's 1500 m T52 and men's 5000 m T52 events, [8] for which he received a Medal of the Order of Australia. [1] He also competed in the men's marathon T52. [5] At the 1998 IPC Athletics World Championships in Berlin, he won four gold medals in the men's 800 m, men's 1500 m, men's 5000 m and the men's marathon. [9]
Smith retired from wheelchair athletics in 2002. After a two-year break, he took up wheelchair rugby socially and at the end of his first season he won the New South Wales State League Most Valuable Player Award and the National League Best New Talent. [10] In 2006, he represented Australia for the first time in wheelchair rugby at the Canada Cup International Tournament. He was a member of the Australian mixed team that won the silver medal in wheelchair rugby at the 2008 Beijing Games . After Beijing, he retired as a player but continued as an assistant coach. He came out of retirement in 2010 and was re-selected to the Australian squad in 2011. [3] He was the Australian flag bearer at the 2012 London Games, [11] and was part of the team that won the gold medal. [12] He retired after the Games but still has an active interest in the sport. [13]
Since 2018, he has been the Assistant Coach of the Australian Steelers.
Kurt Harry Fearnley, is an Australian wheelchair racer, who has won gold medals at the Paralympic Games and crawled the Kokoda Track without a wheelchair. He has a congenital disorder called sacral agenesis which prevented fetal development of certain parts of his lower spine and all of his sacrum. In Paralympic events he is classified in the T54 classification. He focuses on long and middle-distance wheelchair races, and has also won medals in sprint relays. He participated in the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Paralympic Games, finishing his Paralympic Games career with thirteen medals. He won a gold and silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and was the Australian flag bearer at the closing ceremony.
Alix Louise Sauvage, OAM is an Australian paralympic wheelchair racer and leading coach.
Christie Dawes is an Australian Paralympic wheelchair racing athlete. She has won three medals in athletics at seven Paralympics from 1996 to 2021.
Salvador Hernández Mondragón is an athlete and Paralympian from Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico competing mainly in category T51/T52 wheelchair racing events.
Dean Bergeron is a Paralympic athlete from Canada who competed mainly in category T52 sprint events in four Paralympic Games and is pursuing a career as an actuary.
Andre Beaudoin is a Paralympic athlete from Canada competing mainly in category T52 sprint events.
Thomas Geierspichler is a Paralympic wheelchair racer from Austria. He competes in the T52 classification.
Marathon events have been held at the Summer Paralympic Games, for both men and women, since the 1984 Summer Paralympics in Stoke Mandeville and New York City. They are held as part of the Paralympic athletics programme.
Heinrich Köberle, was a German athlete. He competed in wheelchair marathons in a handcycle, and won four gold medals in marathons at the Paralympic Games - more than any other athlete. He held the record for the fastest men's marathon in his disability category, set in Berlin in 1995, in 2:23:08.
Australia competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Games in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012. The London Games were the biggest Games with 164 nations participating, 19 more than in the 2008 Beijing Paralympic. Australia has participated at every Summer Paralympic Games and hosted the 2000 Sydney Games. As such, the 2000 Sydney Games, regarded as one of the more successful Games, became a point-of-reference and an inspiration in the development of the 2012 London Games.
The 1996 Summer Paralympics were held in the United States city of Atlanta. Australia competed in 13 of the 17 sports, winning medals in 10 of those sports. At the 1996 Summer Paralympics, Australia had the second highest medal tally of any country competing. It won 42 gold, 37 silver and 27 bronze medals. It surpassed the 24 gold medals that Australia won at the 1992 Paralympics. The sports of athletics, swimming and cycling provided Australia with the majority of its medals.
Madison de Rozario, is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair racer who specialises in middle and long-distance events. She competed at the 2008 Beijing, 2012 London, 2016 Rio, 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Paralympics, winning two gold, four silver and two bronze medals. She has also won ten medals at the World Para Athletics Championships and four gold at the Commonwealth Games. De Rozario holds the world record in the Women's 800m T53 and formerly in the Women's 1500m T53/54.
John Lindsay, OAM is an Australian Paralympic athlete from Melbourne. He competed in the 1988 Seoul games in distances ranging from 100 m to 800 m, but did not win any medals. At the 1992 Barcelona Games, he won a gold medal in the Men's 200 m TW3 event, for which he received a Medal of the Order of Australia, a silver medal in the Men's 100 m TW3 event and a bronze medal in the Men's 400 m TW3 event. That year, he had a Victorian Institute of Sport scholarship. He was also working as a fitness instructor in 1992, held world records in the 100 m and 200 m events, and was ranked 6th in the world in the 400 m. He won a gold medal in the men's athletics 100 m T52 event at the 1996 Summer Paralympics with a time of 15.22, a silver medal in the 200 m T52 event with a time of 27.38, and a bronze medal in the 400 m T52 event with a time of 52.93. At the 2000 Sydney Games, he won a gold medal in the Men's 100 m T53 event, a silver medal as part of the Men's 4x100 m Relay T54 team, and a bronze medal in the Men's 200 m T53 event; he was also part of the Men's 4x400 m Relay T54 team, which was the only one to qualify in its heat, but it did not make it to the finals. At the 2004 Athens Games, he came seventh in the first round of the Men's 100 m T53 event and sixth in the third round of the Men's 200 m T53 event. He was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder in 1995 and 2000.
Fabian John Blattman, OAM is an Australian Paralympic athlete. He became disabled after a motorbike accident. He started playing disabled bowls, before switching to athletics. As a Paralympic athletics competitor, he has set several world records and won two Paralympic gold medals.
Alan Rex Dufty is an Australian Paralympic athlete who won twelve medals at three Paralympics from 1984 to 1992.
Sam McIntosh is an Australian Paralympic athlete who races in the T52 100m, 200m, and 400m events. He holds 3 Australian National Records and 2 Oceania Records. He represented Australia at the 2012 London Paralympic Games, 2016 Rio Paralympics, 2020 Tokyo Paralympics and the 2024 Paris Paralympics in athletics as well as the 2011, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2023 Para Athletic World Championships.
Men's marathon races for wheelchair athletes at the 2004 Summer Paralympics followed a course from Marathon to the Panathinaiko Stadium, and started at 08:00 on 26 September. Events were held in three wheelchair disability classes, together with two classes of visually impaired athletes.
Peter Genyn is a Paralympian sportsman from Belgium. Initially Genyn competed as a wheelchair rugby player before switching to track and field athletics in 2014 where he competes in category T51 sprint events. In 2016 he became the world record holder in the T51 men's 400 metres sprint.
Marieke Vervoort was a Belgian Paralympic athlete with reflex sympathetic dystrophy. She won several medals at the Paralympics, and she received worldwide attention in 2016 when she revealed that she was considering euthanasia.
Samuel "Sam" Rizzo is an Australian Paralympic athletics competitor. He competed at the 2024 Paris Paralympics.